AP Is Latest Media Company to Flee Midtown
By Liam La Guerre August 27, 2015 3:41 pm
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The Associated Press, a nearly 170-year-old news institution, is leaving its world headquarters in Midtown for a 172,000-square-foot space in Brookfield Property Partners’ 200 Liberty Street across from the World Trade Center, becoming the latest media firm to flee Midtown.
About 600 AP employees will move in early 2017 to the 40-story building, which is part of the Brookfield Place office and retail center between West Street and North End Avenue, according to an AP press release.
The terms of the lease were not released and representatives for the landlord declined to comment because the deal has not been completed, according to a Brookfield (BN) spokeswoman. However, the lease will be for at least 21 years, as AP reported in a story about the deal.
AP is moving because of pending rent increases for its current space at 450 West 33rd Street, which is also owned by Brookfield. The company’s current lease expires in 2019. The rent is $15 million per year and is set to rise heavily because of the Hudson Yards project, the news release said.
“We’re going to a better building in a better location for less money,” AP’s Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said in the AP story.
The newswire also said that it had too much space in its current 291,000-square-foot offices, which it originally moved into in 2004 with 950 employees.
The AP is following the trail of media and news companies leaving Midtown. Condé Nast moved to 1 World Trade Center leaving it’s headquarters at 4 Times Square, as Commercial Observer previously reported. Time Inc. is moving to Brookfield Place this year. Also, earlier this year News Corp. and 21st Century Fox Inc. signed a non-binding agreement to anchor Larry Silverstein’s 2 World Trade Center.
Among media and news firms left in Midtown are The New York Times, in its 52-story tower at 620 Eighth Avenue, Thomson Reuters in 3 Times Square and NBC in 30 Rockefeller Center.
